been invalidated, and never can. It is the reluctant testimony of an unwilling witness, extorted from him by the notoriety of the fact, the force of which he is anxious to diminish as far as in his power, not by denying the numbers, but by disparaging the understandings of the Unitarians. With this the argument has nothing to do. The fact is, that in the time of Tertullian, at the end of the second century, as far as that learned writer's knowledge extended, the major pars credentium, the majority of believers,' shuddered (expavescunt) at the doctrine of the trinity, as an infringement of the apostolic faith, and as introducing the worship of three Gods. And to express their abhorrence of the new philosophic doctrines, both Greeks and Latins zealously and loudly proclaimed their attachment to the great doctrine of the divine unity, or, as they very properly expressed it, of the Monarchy, the sole, undivided, unrivalled government of God. All this Tertullian tells us, and all this Tertullian knew. His expressions plainly indicate that he must have been not unfrequently the distressed and mortified witness of the unpopularity of the trinitarian doctrine, and of the clamorous and triumphant zeal of the Unitarian crowd.

The manner in which Dr. Horsley attempts to evade this clear and decisive testimony of Tertullian is pitiable in the extreme. He translates the passage thus: "Simple persons (not to call them ignorant and idiots), who always make the majority of believers, because the rule of faith carries us away from the many gods of the heathen to the one true God,―startle at the œconomy," &c. The impropriety of rendering "idiotæ," idiots, the Archdeacon certainly knew, nor, to say the truth, does he lay much stress upon the word. But his remarks and comment upon the passage are most extraordinary. He first observes, in direct contradiction to the plainest fact," that Tertullian alleges that what credit the Unitarian doctrine

obtained

obtained was only with the illiterate, nor with all the illiterate, but with those only, who were ignorant and stupid in the extreme." The learned writer must surely have supposed his readers to be bereft of common understanding; especially when he presumes to add the following most extraordinary observation: "To PRECLUde the PLEA OF NUMBERS," says he, "Tertullian remarks that the illiterate will always make the majority of believers.” How being the majority can preclude the plea of numbers, is beyond a plain man's understanding to comprehend. The learned writer then proceeds to exhibit an exposition of Tertullian's very clear and intelligible language. Tertullian says, "Simple persons, not to say ignorant and idiots, who always make the majority of believers," &c. This is the archdeacon's own translation. His exposition follows. "SOME simple people take alarm at the notion of a plurality of persons in the unity of the Godhead. Simple people did I say? I should have said ignorant and dull. When it is considered that persons of mean endowments must always be the majority of a body collected as the church is, from all ranks of men, it were no wonder that the followers of the Unitarian preachers were more numerous than they really are." "It is no testimony," adds the learned dignitary, " to the popularity of your favourite opinions. It is a charge of ignorance against your party; of such ignorance as would invalidate the plea of numbers if it were set up.'" That a person of talents and learning, who had a character to lose, should hazard such an assertion as this in the teeth of his own translation of Tertullian's words, is truly extraordinary. But what must that cause be which needs such a method of defence 27?

Athanasius,

27 See Horsley's Tracts, Lett. ix. p. 175. Dr. Priestley, in his Reply, expresses his astonishment at the unwarrantable liberty which Dr. Horsley had taken in the limitation which he gives to the indefinite

language

Athanasius, in his Treatise against Paul of Samosata, a celebrated Unitarian, says, "It grieves even now those who stand up for the holy faith, that the multitude, 785 Tоλλ85, and especially those of low understanding, should be infected with these blasphemies." "This," Dr. Priestley observes," is, like that of Tertullian, the language of complaint and it is not the doctrine of Arius, but that of Paulus Samosatensis, that is here complained of £8,"

From this induction it appears that the great body of unlearned christians continued to hold Unitarian principles not only to the time of Origen and Tertullian, but even to that of Athanasius and Jerome, after the Council of Nice. But if this fact be proved, it is a strong presump. tion that Unitarianism was the doctrine of the first christians, and also, of the apostles and first teachers of christianity. For what they taught all would at first believe, and the unlearned would be the last to change. Specu

language of Tertullian. This he justly calls "a gross misrepresentation," and adds, "I really wonder at your assurance in this." He afterwards accuses his learned adversary of ignorance or misrepresentation in translating "idiotæ," idiots, and asks him "in what lexicon, ordinary or extraordinary, he finds this sense of the word." See Dr. Priestley's Second Letters, p. 62, 63. Upon this verbal error, which did not materially affect the argument, it was needless for Dr. Priestley to have dilated so much. Dr. Horsley saw his advantage; and he was too dexterous a disputant not to avail himself of the opportunity which Dr. Priestley gave him by his loud and reiterated complaints upon this subject, of diverting the attention of the reader from the main question, his gross misrepresentation of Tertullian, by a laboured defence of himself from this trifling charge; and to this end he takes the pains to write a long dissertation at the end of his volume of Tracts to prove that "idiota" may be rendered idiot. And in this way he contrives to leave an impression upon the minds of superficial readers, that he has gained an advantage over Dr. Priestley even in this clear and unequivocal passage from Tertullian.

66

38 See Athanasii Opp. vol. i. p. 591. Dr. Priestley, ibid. p. 269. Jerome is also supposed to allude to the Unitarians when he says that simple believers, simplices credentium, did not understand the Scriptures according to their majesty. And that to them the ground of the people of God brought forth hay, as to the heretics it produced thorns.”. Hieron. Opp. vol, iv. p. 118. Priestley, ibid. p. 270.

lative persons are always the first to begin an alteration in public opinion. If the public opinion is right, speculative men are the first who introduce error: if it be wrong, they are the first to reform and correct it. The change in the mass of the unlearned is gradual and slow: but generally, in process of time, it follows the direction of the learned. What is now the popular doctrine was once confined to the philosophers, and made its way by very slow degrees, and with great difficulty, among the common people. The corruptions of christianity were introduced by the learned and inquisitive. And by the learned and inquisitive the reformation was begun. By persons of this description it is still carried on, and is visibly, though slowly, advancing in opposition to the clamours of the ignorant, and to the artifice or violence of the interested. That truth by its native energy, aided by time, will eventually prevail, there can be no reasonable doubt: and when it has once re-established its glorious empire, there is no ground to apprehend that the age of darkness will return again. The prejudices which now obstruct its progress will then all operate in its favour: while the universal diffusion of knowledge, and the continually accelerated progress of human improvement, will oppose an insurmountable and eternal bar to the return of those gross errors and abominations which have for so many centuries been the disgrace of reason, and the bane of christianity.

ABSTRACT

APPENDIX TO SECT. XII.

OF THE

CONTROVERSY BETWEEN DR.

PRIESTLEY AND DR. HORSLEY CONCERNING THE EXISTENCE OF AN ORTHODOX CHURCH OF HEBREW CHRISTIANS AT ÆLIA, WHO HAD DEPARTED FROM THE JEWISH RITUAL.

DR. PRIESTLEY having asserted upon the authority of Origen, that "the Jews who believed in Jesus were called Ebionites; that these Ebionites were of two sorts, one of them believing the miraculous conception, the other not, but all of them considering Christ as a mere man 1",

Dr. Horsley in reply, after endeavouring to show that Origen's words might be interpreted differently, proceeds in a very triumphant tone to remark, "Let his words be taken as you understand them.I shall take what you may think a bold step. I shall tax the veracity of your witness of this Origen. I shall tell you that whatever may be the general credit of his character, yet in this bu siness the particulars of his deposition are to be little regarded, when he sets out with the allegation of a notorious falsehood. He alleges of the Hebrew christians in general, that they had not renounced the Mosaic law. The assertion served him for an answer to the invective which Celsus had put in the mouth of a Jew against the converted Jews, as deserters of the laws and customs of their ancesThe answer was not the worse for wanting truth, if his heathen antagonist was not sufficiently informed in the true distinctions of christian sects, to detect the falsehood......THE FACT is, that after the demolition of Jerusa

tors.

1 Priestley's Lett. to Horsley, p. 18.

lem